Desiree grew up in Laverre City in the loving care of her circus family. Her mothers adored her and tried in all their power to make sure Desiree lived a pleasant life. Individuality was one life lesson her mothers wholeheartedly supported. They let her dress and act however she pleased and was only punished for misbehaving, which unfortunately was quite often in her youth. The encouragement from her parents was not in vain, for this trait stuck with her into adulthood. Just as they encouraged her, she encouraged her friends and helped them find their ways in life.

Desiree adapted herself to the circus life with no problem. Early on, she practiced acrobatics before discovering her range of flexibility and taking on the route of a contortionist. Some of her peers found it cool, while others found it downright terrifying. It’s not every day you see a kid dislocate their shoulder!

The entirety of her childhood was spent with her bestie, Adrien Benoit. They met during preschool and have been inseparable ever since. The two of them were notorious troublemakers who wreaked havoc in the school hallways through various pranks, making detention their second home. The Dubois welcomed Adrien with open arms and allowed him to visit whenever he wanted. It wasn’t the same the other way around though, because Adrien’s mother, Charlotte Benoit, could not stand Desiree.

Desiree’s mothers warned her that there would be people in the world who wouldn’t accept her for who she was. At first it confused her; everyone around her was so loving and caring! She wouldn’t know what they meant until she met Charlotte. Charlotte was a wealthy woman who owned one of the biggest perfume lines in all of Kalos: the Benoît Parfum. Her love for money surpassed her love for her husband and fueled her taste for the extravagant. The fast-paced life of the high class kept her busy, and the only time she showed interest in her kids was when she wanted to parade them off like trophies.

Desiree’s visits to the Benoit household were met with hostility and it wasn’t uncommon for Charlotte to criticize her attire and slam the door in her face. In Charlotte’s eyes, she was nothing more than a circus freak. It was the first time Desiree met such a hateful woman and after three bad encounters, Adrien and Desiree decided it would be best if Desiree just snuck into Adrien’s room through the windows for future visits.

During her pokeschool days, there was rumor of a ghost haunting the halls in the dead of the night. Desiree, being one who enjoyed fanciful tales of the supernatural, went to investigate. Adrien went along with her, not because he actually believed in ghosts, but moreso for the adventure. After a thorough search around the school premises, they failed to find a ghost. Instead, they discovered a timid girl huddled under the bleachers with her nose in a book. This girl was Lucy L’Estrange and she would later become one of Desiree’s dearest friends.

Later on in grade school, Desiree befriended a boy named Pierre LaChapelle. He was reserved and more interested in his books than talking to others. Desiree, being the sociable person she was, was able break down barriers and befriend him. Pierre found her charming and the two of them became fast friends. They discovered they shared a similar search for identity and spent their time sharing personal stories and giving advice.

When she reached her preteens, she started dating Adrien. It was the childish kind of dating--the cutesy hand-holding and hugging kind of dating, which went on for three years. It wasn’t until later into their relationship that Desiree realized that she really liked girls.

Girls gave her a different feeling...a feeling she couldn’t quite describe at the time. Though she loved Adrien with all her heart, her feelings with him didn’t feel the same as they did with girls. It was inexplicable, and it wouldn’t be until later in her teen years that she learned what that meant. Lucy heavily impacted those feelings because she was the first girl Desiree ever crushed on. She was head over heels, but she kept her feelings to herself. She broke up with Adrien only weeks before, and in her eyes, moving onto another relationship might be too soon.

While all these emotions swirled around in her teenage mind, her parents hit her with another emotional blow: they were moving to Hoenn. Desiree would leave all her Kalosian friends behind and be tossed into a foreign region with minimal knowledge of their language. Desiree wasn’t at all pleased with their decision and argued with them, pleaded with them, but this didn’t change her mothers’s minds. Her family had relatives in Hoenn who were performers just like them and her parents wanted a reunion. By the end of the summer, they checked out and flew to Hoenn.

(A/N: This is old and I wrote it forever ago and it's just too long scoob)

Adrien and Desiree loved shopping around Mauville City. During one of their trips, they noticed something peculiar: two hooded figures, brimming in crimson. They were covered head to toe with a knitted sweater hugging their legs and chest. It was unclear whether or not the sweater was a onesie, but it made their appearance all the more amusing. Layered on top of them were high-water pants and a hideous crop top to match. Needless to say, Desiree wasn't fond of their fashion choices and it was bizarre how no one in the mall paid the grunts any mind.

The two men discussed something out of earshot range before disappearing into a shadowy alley, and in that moment, Desiree and Adrien decided to follow suit. They wanted to know more about these hooded weirdos.

The teens followed the men all the way to Mt. Chimney, traversing Jagged Pass and arriving at a grand entrance peppered with crimson banners for Team Magma. The base was well hidden being buried deep into the mountain. The teens obviously couldn’t follow the grunts into the main entrance, so they sought to find an alternative entrance: vents just large enough for the teens to squeeze through.

Desiree’s flexibility allowed her to move through the vents with ease, but Adrien lagged behind. The vents provided a window into the base, revealing clusters of people and, like the two men from earlier, they were all dressed in red, donning the same tacky hoodie. The small horde stood in front of a large screen saluting a gaunt red-headed man in glasses. If the two had to guess, they would’ve thought they had stumbled upon a weird cult. The teens pressed on, but they didn’t stay in vents for long. Unaware that some of the vents were surrounded by magma-filled pipes, the hot metal beneath their fingers and thick air became too much to bare.

They traveled to the nearest exit, leading them to a storage room. The two of them stuck close together and maneuvered through the maze of boxes. It was when they ventured into the hallway that things got tricky. Adrien and Desiree have always been good at hide and seek. It was a nice skill to have when teachers hunted them down for detention. However, the Magma base was bare, and aside from the room they departed, there wasn’t a place to hide. Despite their better judgment, they decided to keep snooping around. After all, when were they gonna get another chance to infiltrate a cool super secret cult base?

Adrien and Desiree braved the halls, having a few close calls with stray grunts. They zipped around corners and kept their backs pressed to the walls. They did well for a while, until they heard rhythmic clicks echoing through both ends of the hall. They tried to find an alternate means of escape, but there was none and by the time they tried to make a mad-dash down the hall, the two senior grunts, Min Lau and Yui Yamaguchi, had already caught them in their sights.

The two of them were sent to the office and scolded for their actions, but to their surprise, they were offered recruitment. Team Magma didn’t want to deal with loud-mouthed teens spoiling their location and they were mildly impressed that the pair had bypassed the guards and made it so far into the base. While the teens had zero interest in Team Magma’s goals, they complied because what else were bored teens to do?

New grunts were required to undergo beginners training. It was a test of skill and learning protocol. Desiree enjoyed training because it filled her with adrenaline and vigor, so she performed flawlessly, flaunting her dexterity and form thanks to years of practice with acrobatics. However, her trainers were quite baffled by the way she moved. She was quite fond of showing off her ability to bend her body in ways she shouldn’t. While she thought it was cool, others found it unnerving and there were many instances where Desiree was rushed to the nurse’s office for “broken limbs.” She became well acquainted with the team nurse, Miriam Torres, and whenever Desiree landed herself in Miriam’s office, Miriam would shake her head, let out a sigh, and ask Desiree about her day because there was nothing to fix.

Desiree and Adrien were a peculiar pair. The two of them were always all over each other, hand in hand, showing more affection than what would be typically acceptable in Hoennian society. Many fellow grunts assumed they were dating, but they were nothing more than two friends who enjoyed each other’s companionship.

In comparison to Adrien, Desiree was more lax when it came to following the rules. She did what she was told and attended all the training sessions. However, this didn’t stop her from going on pranking hijinks and snooping around the base past curfew.

After completing basic training, Desiree began to slack off. She showed less and less interest in the missions and opted to keep Adrien company instead. Yui was at loss. No matter what kind of punishments she sentenced the teens to, they remained undeterred. Adrien and Desiree were frequently sent to the Magma equivalent of detention, where they casually chatted in French about opinions, personal things, and complaints. Their conversations remained private, because fortunately for them, no one else in the base spoke French…or so they thought. It wasn’t until towards the end of their Magma days that Min Lau, the man they had undermined since Day 1, the man they had talked smack to and gossiped about in front of his face, spoke to them French. It was only a single sentence, but it was enough to make them freeze like a Deerling in headlights. From that day on, they agreed to be more mindful of what they discussed in public because they never knew who around them could speak French.

Min was a thorough man whose fierce diligence rose him to high ranks. He did any and everything for Magma and kept a close eye on the lower ranked grunts. Refusing to allow Magma to be compromised, he took it upon himself to do background checks on new recruits. It wasn’t difficult to find information on the two Kalosian teens as they were all over the net: Desiree was a well-known circus performer from Cirque du Coubeaux and Adrien was an heir to a wealthy perfume company.

One of the downsides to being in Team Magma was the complete lack of people to interact with. For a while, Desiree kept her attention centered on Adrien and the two senior grunts who refused to leave her alone. It wasn’t until halfway into her first year that she met someone new, someone who was a teenager just like her: Kota Marume.

Desiree’s first interactions with Kota didn’t go so well. The kid was a freakin’ nerd, and what did Desiree do with nerds? Prank them. Needless to say, she got him good a couple of times. Kota’s hot-headed reactions provided all sorts of entertainment. His cheeks flared, his fists tightened, and his face contorted into a nasty scowl. Kota swore to hell and back that he’d get his revenge, but (spoilers) he never did. The two of them would’ve never guessed that down the road they would be the best of friends.

Not even a few weeks after Kota’s arrival, another teen moved to the base: Sousuke Watanabe. He was the complete opposite of Kota: sweet, kind and shy. Desiree couldn’t bring herself to pull any pranks on him because he was just too sweet. Sousuke and Desiree became fast friends, which further pissed off Kota because Sousuke was The Enemy ™. What did Sousuke do? Be his roommate. Kota was livid that he had to share a room with Sousuke because it was his room, but there was nothing he could do about it.

A story for another time...(wip)